Talk:Auction (rule)/@comment-1416077-20150622192604
The auction can be used strategically; if you already own one property on a set, you can decline to buy it directly, starting an auction among the other players; if the auction goes slowly, you make a bid and get the property for less than its face value. With high-desirability properties, an auction can be key to crippling an opponent's finances; for example; during one game, long ago, I controlled three monopolies (including the coveted orange set) AND I had Park Place; it was late in the game and my finances were a bit strained from improving my properties... when I landed in the last unsold property: Boardwalk. Although I did have the $400 to buy it outright, to the shock of every other player (a 5-player game) I declined to buy it, allowing it to go to auction; by the third bid ($1,000), the other four players were counting their cash and calculating how much money they could get from selling houses, mortgaging properties and all sorts of trades. Once, when I thought it was over, I was going to ask a non-related question, but my opening my mouth was interpreted as my placing a bid, which started another frenzied round of bidding. By the time the auction was done, my biggest threat on the table was holding several mortgages and had (IIRC) a grand total of one house on just one of his properties. He soon fell prey to my New York Hotel, forcing him to sell off most of his assets to stave off bankrupcy... only to fall prey to another opponent's loaded red property and go bankrupt. Rather than pay off the mortgages, he decided to sell them to the highest bidder among the other two players (didn't hurt me: it's part of the game)... both of whom went into a bidding frenzy for the properties they needed... and the coveted (mortgaged) Boardwalk. They sold off houses and/or mortgaged other properties to get the properties they needed unmortgaged and improved... which left them both in a poor position to survive minefields. The one who got Boardwalk traded it to the other instead of having to pay an arm and a leg for landing on a hotel... then the other went bankrupt to the bank, prompting an auction of her properties; including Boardwalk. My biggest threat took it upon himself to not let me have Boardwalk, no matter the cost, so I bid him up to nearly seven thousand dollars, which crippled him when he landed on my Baltic Hotel... with doubles, which landed him on a pink hotel owned by another player, forcing him to sell off houses to pay the rent. In his next turn, he checked into my New York Hotel... forcing him to sell off nearly everything he had left... most of which was mortgaged, before gracefully retiring with a grand total of $6 to his name. The last player now owned more properties than I, but only one monopoly was active; everything else was mortgaged... and I had three full sets of hotels. Three more rounds, game was over. At no point did I gain control of Boardwalk.